The statistical tool most commonly used to analyze driving performance is “Fairway hit” or “Fairway missed”. A “Fairway hit” means that the shot played from the tee comes to rest within the closely mown area of the hole known as the fairway. A “Fairway missed” means that the shot played from the teeing ground comes to rest somewhere other than the closely mown area (fairway). Golfers will typically count the number of “Fairways hit” in a round or average the number of fairways hit in several rounds of golf. This number of fairways hit per round is the common method of measuring driving performance.
The “Fairways hit” driving performance statistic is incomplete as it only measures the relative frequency of success (Fairways hit) and does not provide any indication as to the character or severity of the “missed” fairways. For example, a golfer can hit 12 of 14 fairways (86%) in a given round but miss the other two drives in the worst of all possible outcomes—Out of Bounds—each miss incurring a stroke and distance penalty. Despite the two major errors, anyone looking at the golfer's driving statistics would see the high number of fairways hit and be lead to believe that the poor score had to be attributed to something other than a driving issue. In the same way, a golfer could hit only 4 of 14 fairways (29%), but the ten misses all result in reasonable or good positions. Again, the “Fairways hit” statistic would prove to be an inappropriate and misleading measure of the golfer's true driving performance.
What is desired, therefore, is a system and method of analyzing performance of golfers which provides an accurate indication of the golfer's driving accuracy and effectiveness. A system and method is needed that takes into account a golfer's performance on all drives and that specifically measures the relative severity of fairways missed and can further assign an accurate handicap to the golfer's driving performance as well as support this analysis with relevant comparative data.